Papua New Guinea Visit a Success

The Cairns Indigenous Marlins played an International Exhibition Game against The Papua New Guinea National Team last Saturday Night, September 15 at the Bendigo Bank Basketball Centre.

The touring P.N.G Kummels Team where joined by local brothers Peterson & Charles Opio, after they where named in the National Squad earlier in the year, and Marlins “legend” Gausa Arnold who also has P.N.G. heritage.

It was the Kummels first opportunity to play together since finishing ninth at the Arafura Games International Tournament in Darwin this past June and the team used the game as a hit out before they head to Samoa for the South Pacific Games.

The Exhibition Game was the first time the Indigenous Marlins have played together since taking out the National Aboriginal & Torres Strait Islander Basketball Championship in Sydney in October 2006 and was valuable preparation before they travel to Perth in November to defend the title.

Joel Khalu, Brent Khalu, Jacob Pilot, Michael Paiwan, Thomas Samuel and Richard Ketchell where joined by former Taipan Deba George who will also be suiting up for the team this year.

The game was a tight struggle in the first half with the Kummels playing some well structured offence to keep them in touch while the Marlins struggled to gel and only remained 3 points in front due to some great 3 point shooting by Joel Khalu and the individual brilliance from Deba George.  Gausa Arnold, despite his lack of match fitness, showed that he could still mix it with the young guns and top scored for the Kummels in the first half with 12 points. Half Time Score Cairns 58 PNG 55.

The third quarter was the Deba and Joel show as they put on 22pts out of the Marlins 28 for the quarter. The Kummels were starting to tire and this reflected on the scoreboard with Cairns 28 (PNG 12) clearly winning the quarter.

In the final Quarter the Marlins Bench managed to hold off a determined Kummels outfit 26 to 22 with Wally Parpipa scoring 10 pts for the Quarter and Peter Devani running the point with poise and confidence for the Kummels.

“This was a great experience for both Teams……The game was played in great spirit and we all enjoyed it, the crowd was much larger than I had expected given the game clashed with the Festival of Cairns parade of lights” said Joel Khalu

Planning has commenced to establish an annual reciprocal event with the Marlins travelling to Papua New Guinea in 2008 to do some development clinics as well as participating in the exhibition game.

Final Scores

Cairns Indigenous Marlins 113 (Deba George 33, Joel Khalu 27) defeated  

Papua New Guinea Kummels 89 (Peterson Opio 22, Wally Parpipa 21, Gausa Arnold 19)